Day 49: Ameliorate
You’ve hit your low. The time in your life when you say “this will be a part of my testimony.” The suffering that suffocates and leaves you dry as a sponge in the desert sun. The days when your parents pass away, you fail a test, or you are about to reveal a huge secret in your life. The pits of all pits.
I remember the day my best friend ended her own life. I considered the idea that this life was too painful to live in. I was in my pit.
So, you speak out. “What’s next? Do you really still have plans to prosper me? Do you really still have plans to give me a hope and a future?”
You ask these questions already with your heart already prepped for a “No.”
Instead of hearing exactly what you thought you would, with hopes you’d be surprised, you do not even hear a “yes” either. You hear the words “Get up. Sin no more.”
Ameliorate: to make something better, more bearable, or more satisfactory; improve.
It is time for us to ameliorate.
Read:
John 8:1-11
Jesus looked at this woman and said “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” In other words, get up. Go. Take courage. Stay steadfast, make better, and improve. When you are in your next “pit,” remember the cry of this woman. Remember how Jesus pulled her up and looked her in the eyes saying “Go. Sin no more.” Jesus is calling us to ameliorate.
Questions to consider:
1. How often are we asking God to pick us up off the ground vs. sitting and waiting in our pain
2. How many people would we be able to reach if we quickly focused on laying our sins at the cross instead of being “stoned” in pain?
Prayer:
Lord, you promise that if we ask, we shall receive. Please see our sins and trespasses, look us in the eyes, and tell us to go and sin no more. Help us to hear your voice, and we trust that you will hear ours as we daily cry out to you in prayer.
By Macray Jerome, NU Student